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Fifteen minutes later Dirk sat in the stern of the boat, ready and waiting. Mei-li sat beside him. They’d stopped at her apartment before coming here, and she’d changed into an outfit as black as his. She’d also bundled her hair out of the way with one of those clips women used when they were more concerned with neatness than style. When Dirk had finished applying the black greasepaint to himself, she’d taken the tube and mimicked him.
He couldn’t help but smile. She was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, smeared face and all. But she was so much more than that. She was the woman who’d breathed life into the empty husk of a man he’d been since Bree had died, and he couldn’t imagine life without her now.
He picked up her hand and stared at it. So small. So delicate in appearance, just like Mei-li herself. But she was a woman who could move mountains with these hands. A woman who’d decided—for God knew what reason—that he needed rescuing just as much as his daughters did...and had done just that.
He raised her hand and kissed her palm. “Thank you,” he said simply. “No matter what happens tonight...thank you.”
A tiny splash of something that wasn’t a wave was the only warning they received before a lithe male body in a wet suit lifted itself over the side of the boat. He was joined by another. Then another.
Jason Moore came out to meet them. A soft exchange in Cantonese passed between the four men. Then Jason turned to Dirk. “We found it.”
He asked a question in Cantonese of one of the wet-suited men, who nodded and said, “Hai.” More patter followed, and when he was done Jason clapped him on the arm in a universally recognized gesture meaning “Well done.”
“They’re all sleeping,” Jason explained in an undertone. He grabbed a pen and notepad and sketched the layout of the boat that was their target. “The kidnappers are here and here,” he said, drawing their sleeping bodies. “Your daughters are here and here in the stern, right up against the back wall. But see how the stern curves up at a sharp angle? No way to get a man up there through the back wall without making some noise. Can’t risk it. A frontal assault is the only way. Take out the kidnappers before they can react and retaliate.” He glanced at Dirk. “Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“We know one has a gun. This one,” he said, identifying the body on the left. “The other one might. But we can’t go in blasting. Yes,” he said with a small smile when Dirk raised his eyebrows in a question. “Guns are illegal in Hong Kong, but we do have them. We just can’t risk using them in that confined space, not with your daughters there. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Jason assessed Dirk again. “The space is too small for more than a three-man assault team.”
He pointed at himself, then at Dirk. But before he could point to one of the three wet-suited men, Mei-li said quietly, “I’m going in, too.”
Dirk and Jason simultaneously said, “No.”
“Are you kidding me?” Mei-li said, looking from one man to the other, incredulity obvious even beneath the greasepaint. “You’re both turning all macho, protective idiot on me?” Staccato Cantonese flowed out of her in a steady stream addressed to Jason, then she turned to Dirk and said, “I’m the smallest one here. In a frontal assault—you on one side, Jason on the other—I’m the best chance we have of slipping between the two of you and reaching your daughters. These men,” she added, gesturing toward the men in the wet suits, “I suggest they go back in the water surrounding the boat. Then, if one or both of the girls ends up in the harbor...”
“Makes sense,” Jason said.
Which put Dirk on the spot. No way did he want Mei-li in the line of fire. He’d never survive if he lost her, too. “Don’t think of me,” she said softly, her eyes meeting his. “Think of what’s best for Linden and Laurel.”
That steadied him. Reminded him that the safety of his daughters wasn’t just his first priority, it was Mei-li’s, too. And though it nearly killed him to do it, he nodded his assent.
“We’re a go, then,” Jason said. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter 20
They motored out into the middle of the harbor before Jason cut the engine. He and his men used paddles to get them closer to their target without waking anyone in the surrounding boats. Then the three men in wet suits slipped nearly soundlessly into the water with a tow rope and swam them into place beside their target, stern to bow. Dirk watched, amazed, at how neatly and quietly they accomplished this. All he could think of was that he knew a few stunt men who could learn a lesson or two from these RMM men.
